the president was heavily involved to making calls to egypt and israel. mahmoud abbas even took middle of the night phone calls and he dispatched secretary of state hillary clinton to close the cease-fire deal, which she did with shuttle diplomacy between the west bank and cairo. joining me is republican strategist boris epstein. richard, i'll begin with you, richard graham has been a hard critic of president obama. they are now hailing the cease-fire deal. they released a statement yesterday praising prime minister benjamin netanyahu for reaching the truce. however, did you notice no mention of president obama or secretary clinton? what do you make of that? >> honestly, that statement was sad and pathetic they cannot take off the partisan blinders at a time like this. and i think what it does is it hurts their credibility going forward in the international stage. they were ones very much on susan rice's back about benghazi and the possibility of her being secretary of state. but they have showed themselves being totally incapable of displaying any object